Dropbox Sets IPO Price, Unveils Salesforce Investment

Cloud storage and file sync and share technology developer Dropbox has set the price range of its upcoming IPO at a range of between $16.00 and $18.00 per share, giving the company a target valuation of $7 billion to $8 billion.

At that IPO pricing, the total valuation of Dropbox is below the $10 billion valuation it hit in 2014 when it received a $350 million venture funding round, according to reports.

Dropbox in the S-1 filing also unveiled an agreement with Salesforce Ventures under which that organization will purchase $100 million of Dropbox's Class A common stock in a private placement at the IPO price.

Salesforce Ventures is the strategic venture arm of Salesforce that invests in enterprise cloud companies. Among the company's prior investments is Box, a competitor to Dropbox that went public in early 2015.

The Salesforce Ventures investment comes just three days after Dropbox and Salesforce unveiled a strategic partnership the two companies said will enable customers to use Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud to create new branded and customized Dropbox folders. Users also will be able to access Dropbox content directly within Salesforce Quip.

Dropbox said it has over 500 million total registered users storing a total of about 400 billion pieces of content. This includes over 11 million paying customers, both individual users and members of Dropbox Business teams. Dropbox said over 40 percent of its new Dropbox Business team customers include a member who previously subscribed to an individual paid plan.

San Francisco-based Dropbox was founded in 2007. It reported 2017 revenue of $1.11 billion, up from $844.8 million in 2016 and $603.8 million in 2015.

Dropbox has had a program targeting business users since mid-2013. Solution provider partners can sign up through distributors including Ingram Micro and Synnex or via Dell Technologies. The company's channel program is run by Ellen Fleming, director of channel sales and partnerships. Fleming was named to the 2017 CRN Women of the Channel: Up-and-Comers list.